We go at least once a year and there’s always something different — often for the better, sometimes for the worse. On this occasion, it was very much on the up.

They’ve improved the range of German beer with a range from Schönram, enthusiastically sold to us as a “great german microbrewery — sort of what we’re aspiring to”. We tried the two on tap. The dunkel was the real deal — like something from a German country beer garden — sweet, malty and almost fruity. In the end, however, it was a little tired and plasticky. The Pils, though, was truly fantastic, with grainy, bready malt flavours and minty, herbal hops. The best we’ve had in Britain.

As for their own range, the stout was not in good nick, flat and a bit sweet. Tasted a lot like our homebrewed stout, and helped us to pinpoint what’s wrong with it — not bitter and crisp enough, with too much Marmite flavour. We also gave the Smoked Bock another go, having not been impressed before, and this time, we loved it. It was like a mellower, more sessionable Schlenkerla. There’s more than smoke going on, with plenty of dried fruit and caramel flavours too.

Meantime Helles was also on good form, and we agreed that we could definitely imagine drinking litres of this in a beer garden.

We’ll definitely be visiting the Old Brewery soon.

We had a nice afternoon in one of our favourite London pubs soured on Saturday when we were more-or-less asked to leave to free up the table for a reservation. When we queried whether it had to be our table, given that there were lots of others without reservation signs on, we got a very stroppy response from the bar manager.

The practice of moving people or hurrying them along to squeeze in a second sitting is annoying even in real restaurants, however sensible it might be from a business perspective. But the questions of whether you should be able to reserve tables in pubs at all is a sensitive debate for many British people — it’s a level of formality that seems somehow to undermine the very idea of what the pub is about.

People in Germany seem to cope with it, but maybe that’s because there the reserved signs appear (often with profuse apologies) four hours in advance of the booking, so you’ve got plenty of time to finish up, or just choose another table. In the Greenwich Union, we were given an hour — hardly enough time to eat desert and have another drink.

In the couple of hours we were there, we enjoyed cask conditioned Meantime IPA (7.5%, and not as good as from a bottle) and gained a new appreciation for the fruity, sherbety draught Meantime Helles (4.1%).

So, the Union continues to be both brilliant and annoying. God knows we love the beer, but it might be a while before we go back.

Meantime seem to have convinced pubs all over London to take what we’re assuming is a kegged London Pale Ale. Its green badge has been appearing on big tacky chrome fonts all over the city in the last few weeks, following a successful launch as a bottled beer in some supermarkets earlier this year.

We’ve always been fans of Meantime’s range and haven’t even minded that they don’t, on the whole, bother with cask conditioning at their pub in Greenwich, because their beer simply tastes so nice. But this keg product breaking out into the wild could be a problem: people who run trendy bars and gastropubs are likely to give up on cask ale altogether if they’ve got a decent-tasting, nicely marketed keg alternative.

Then again, have we perhaps moved to a point where the method of dispense, all though a good rule of thumb when it comes to quality, isn’t the be all and end all? There are some very boring cask conditioned ales that, although ideologically sound, taste much worse than some of Meantime’s kegged products.

Is it kegged as we’re assuming? Has anyone tried it? Is it the same beer that’s sold at the Union as Pale Ale, latterly known as “Late Hopped Blonde’? If you have any information, the Kilroy production team would like to hear from you.

Delirium, over at “De Cervezas y otras cosas”, has set a very interesting topic for this month’s “round” (the Session for Spanish-speaking beer-bloggers). It was so thought-provoking that we thought we’d post it in English as well.

The challenge was to come up with a “virtual” tasting session aimed at people who are not beer lovers. We had to pick between five and eight beers that we would put forward, avoiding obscure microbreweries, and explain why we’d selected them.

We like to beervangelise from time to time, so it’s a question we’ve thought about a lot in the past. After much pondering, we finally came up with some definite proposals, which we put forward here.

When deciding what to include, we wanted to present a wide range of styles, so that the beer novice would be suitably impressed by the variety available. At the same time, the beers have to be accessible – so no Rauchbier or Flanders Reds… Also, in keeping with the spirit of the question, we’ve not specified any cask ale in this list, given its limited availability outside the UK.

This list is not “our favourite beers”, although we’d happily drink all of them.

Hoegaarden, 5%

Many claim that this recipe has been dumbed down. We still think it’s a fine drink, refreshing and spicy. It’s on this list because we’ve successfully tried it on people who don’t really drink beer at all, and it’s generally gone down well because of its unusual flavour. Of course, other wits would do the same job — one of our favourites is St Bernardus Wit — but Hoegaarden is much more widely available, so better suits the specifications of this challenge.

Brooklyn Lager, 5.2%

We’ve posted of our love of this before. This is one to give the “premium-lager” lovers to blow their minds. Ale fans will also find plenty to appreciate with its full malt flavour and tangible hops. It’s just a beautiful, well-crafted beer.

St Austell, “Proper Job” IPA, 5.5%

Lots of people think that British ale has to be brown and flat. This beer is for them. It’s a lovely pale brew that sparkles in the glass, and has a wonderful hop aroma and flavour, without being overly bitter. The reason why we’ve selected this in particular from the many great British pale ales is that it seems to work really well in bottles. We might select Meantime IPA instead, as this seems to be exported more, but it’s a lot more “extreme” and difficult to digest.

Schneider Weisse 5.4%

We wanted to include a German Weissbier because it’s such an interesting and distinct style, and this is our favourite. It’s not as sickly as many of the others, and the banana flavour is there without being overpowering. We’ve found that a nice Weissbier often goes down well with lager-lovers – it’s cold and fizzy, after all.

Fuller’s London Porter, 5.4%

This is for the Guinness lovers, to show them what dark beer should be about. It’s a splendid mix of chocolate, fruits, coffee-roastiness and liquorice. It works pretty well in bottles, but is wonderful on cask. In terms of richness and complexity, it beats many Belgian beers with twice the strength. Our decision to include this is possibly influenced by the fact that this is Boak’s favourite beer.

Triple Karmeliet, 8.4%

We would have this one in reserve, to finish off the evening. It has the seductive sweetness and comfort of Leffe, but has more depth of flavour and is, frankly, a bit more credible. It’s not the most complex Belgian beer, but it’s very consistent, and is a great introduction to strong Belgian beers. Pour with a big head and take large gulps to appreciate the rounded, fruity flavours.

Runners-up

We thought a lot about including a fruit beer. We decided not to in the end, much as we like them, as we were assuming that the point of this exercise was to introduce a newcomer to good beer. We’ve given non-beer drinkers Fruli before, and they enjoy it, but that doesn’t mean that they suddenly “convert” to liking beer.

We had a similar debate with chocolate beers. The problem here is that the chocolate beers we like are on the subtle side. We once gave a non-beer-drinker some Meantime Chocolate to try, and they couldn’t taste the chocolate at all. “Urgh – it tastes like beer!” they said.

If you’ve read this far,you may be interested in reading about some real tastings – Tandleman introduced a number of GBBF visitors to bottle-conditioned beers (although he didn’t choose them), and Wilson at Brewvana organised a tasting session for women, with very interesting results.

What would you choose?

To give some context to our tasting notes; neither of us are massive fruit beer fans, and we certainly both prefer our fruit beer to be identifiably *beer* first and foremost, not an alcopop. I really can’t deal with overly sweet drinks of any form, but I do have a bit of a “sour tooth”, whereas Bailey doesn’t tend to go for sour flavours.

Timmerman’s Kriek, 4%
Looks quite artificial, with deep red colour and pink head. There’s a definite hint of sourness in the aroma though, which is promising. The taste – Bassett’s cherry drops. The aftertaste contains a blast of pure sugar on the end of the tongue which I’m not so keen on, but overall, it’s not as bad as I was expecting, i.e. not as sickly sweet as Fruli.

Boon Kriek 4%

We had high hopes for this one, as it seems to be generally quite rated and is as authentic as you like. However, it was a lot like the Timmerman’s – overly sweet and not very complex at all. It was a bit more buttery than Timmerman’s, and had even less sourness.

Mort Subite Kriek (original) 4.5%
This we liked a lot. It’s a much less lurid pink, and the flavour is a great balance of sweet and sour, with a nice dry refreshing finish. Definitely a lot more going on with this one than Timmerman’s or Boon. The difference is in the aftertaste – whereas with the above two we got sugar, and not a lot else, here you get a crisp fruitiness that lingers on the palate.

Meantime Raspberry Grand Cru 6.5%
Bit of an odd one out in this session (raspberry, not lambic, British) but it’s always been a favourite, not least because it’s beer first and raspberry second, with a good bitterness that you don’t tend to get in fruit beers. That’s what we remembered, anyway (see a review from December 2007 here). It always tastes slightly different from batch to batch in the Union, their brewery tap, and we’ve noted that in the last few years it’s become less pink and less obviously raspberry-flavoured.

However, this incarnation (and it is the stronger “grand cru” version) seems to have forgotten the raspberries altogether. There’s a generic fruity taste, a bit like a nice Koelsch, but unless someone told you it was raspberry, you wouldn’t know. The refreshing tartness makes it a pleasant drink, but I think would be a disappointment to people looking for a fruit beer, and at 6.5%, this is not one you want to quaff much of in the sun.

Disappointing – I know this can be better.

Cantillon Kriek 5%
We bought this when we visited the brewery back in August 2007, so it’s been in storage for around nine months, in addition to the time it’s already spent at the brewery.

You have to have the courage of your convictions when you drink this beer. If you gingerly sip it, all you get is SOUR, but if you take a big gulp and let it cover your tongue, there’s a pleasing explosion of apple, cherry, pink grapefruit and strawberry, with red wine / sherry notes in the finish.

I’d be lying if I said I wanted to sip this all day long; even in the sun it’s hard work, although the champagne body and bubbles gives it a pleasing decadent feel.

All in all, Mort Subite was the surprising winner for both of us.

For more tantalising beer on grass action, check out Beer Nut’s post on wheatbeers. He’s got a bigger garden than us though.

For more on fruitbeers, here’s a Session post we did back in August 2007 on the same topic, including notes on our own blackberry beer.

Boak

After a visit to the Greenwich Union, I can confirm that Meantime‘s seasonal “Extra Dry Stout” isn’t all that exciting, as Stonch has already said. It was too fizzy on the tongue, and a little thin-bodied.

I followed it up with a bottle of coffee stout, which has always been, and remains, incredible. They’d run out of chocolate stout, but there were enough chocolate flavours in this to do the job for me. Smooth, chewy, bitter…. just perfect. And Cooper’s Australian “Best Extra Stout” was just slightly better again. The extra 1.5/2% alcohol – they’re both just over 6%, while the dry stout is 4.5% – and the extra body really makes a difference in their impact.

But I trust Alastair Hook to get it right. I think we can expect to see the recipe tinkered with for some time to come. Meantime’s wheat beer was pretty dull at first, but has evolved into a thing of beauty (especially in its strong 6.5% grand cru incarnation).

I also suspect that we’ll see a “Taste the Difference” stout in Sainsbury’s in the next year or so, based on this recipe.